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Tragedia de Los Amores de Eneas y de La Reyna Dido
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
The first dramatic treatment of the story of Dido and Aeneas on the Spanish stage, preceded in world-literature only by Alessandro Pazzi's Dido in Cartagine (1524), is the anonymous Tragedia de los amores de Eneas y de la Reyna Dido, preserved in what seems to be a unique copy, formerly belonging to the library of D. Francisco Manoel da Câmara, now in the National Library at Lisbon, under the signature: Varios reservados 177. Although described by Gallardo, Cañete, and, more recently, by Proença and Anselmo, this copy has remained practically inaccessible to Hispanists.
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page 353 note ∗ Efforts of one of the editors, as far back as 1921, to obtain a photostatic copy of this play, finally bore fruit in 1928, thanks to the kind offices of the distinguished critic, Mr. Aubrey F. G. Bell. Another reproduction was obtained independently by the second editor in 1929, at the suggestion of Professor J. P. W. Crawford, who had been interested in the play for some time.
After both editors had become engaged in preliminary studies for an edition, a chance conversation with a mutual friend led to a discussion of their plans and the present combination of their resources.
page 353 note 1 Ensayo, nr. 4511.
page 353 note 2 Carvajal, Tragedia Josefina, Madrid, 1870, p. xlii. Also in Canete's Teatro español del siglo xvi, Madrid, 1885, p. 576.
page 353 note 3 Bibliografia das obras impressas em Portugal no século xvi, in Anais das Bibliotecas e Arquivos, Lisboa, Serie ii, t. iv (1923), p. 37 (nr. 611).
page 354 note 4 Bernardini Ribeiro e Cristovão Falcão, Obras, Coimbra, 1923, i, 136 f. As this article is going to press I note in Braga, Eschola de Gil Vicente, Porto, 1898, p. 157 the description of an anonymous Auto da Geração humana, which seems to be older than 1536 by its language and the reference in the prologue to the “senhores infantes,” but shows on the title-page “na columna esquerda a data 1536.”
page 354 note 5 Mrs. Michaëlis has pointed out this practice in the Constiluções do Bispado de Evora, dated 1534 and the Capitulos de Cortes, issued in 1539 with the date 1534. Also in the Caballero Determinado, which came out in 1573 with the date of the first edition, 1544. Loc. cit., i, 138.
page 354 note 6 Even coarser is the mutilation in the title-page of Padilla's Retablo de la vida de Christo (cf. Heredia, Catalogue, nr. 2061). For other title-pages, comparable to the type discussed here, in four pieces, cf. Heredia, nrs. 1560, 1822 [p. 125], 1823, 1863, 1889, 2061, 2176, etc.; with solid frame, apparently less frequently used, nrs. 1645, 1822 [p. 124], 1850, 2059 etc.
page 354 note 7 Cf. op. cit., i, 137. The debased Renaissance-style of the design may have some relation to the Classical subject, not of the Dido-play, but, as Mrs. Michaëlis also suggested, of the Tragedia da Vingança de Agamenon of Anrique Ayres Victoria. Indeed, if a copy of the first recorded edition of this play should eventually turn up, it might well show the framework unbroken, and it might prove to be the play for which the date 1536 was originally cut.
page 355 note 8 Referring to her facsimile edition of Autos portugueses de Gil Vicente y de la escuela Vicentina, Madrid, 1922, the late and deservedly lamented Mrs. Carolina Michaëlis de Vasconcellos wrote: “Os caracteres tipograficos, empregados na nossa colecção, são, salvo erro, os que mandara vir de França, sua patria, Germão Galharde, protegido de 1530 endiante pelo Rei, que o enviou a Santa Cruz de Coimbra afim de lá instalar uma imprensa, e em 1544 nomeado typographus regius; caracteres que depois muito gastos, passaram das mãos da viuva, que por algum tempo continuou a empresa (até 1567) às de Antonio Gonçalves. O mesmo vale das tarjas, orlas, faixas e minucias ornamentaes, e das gravuras que se vem no rostos dos Autos …” (loc. cit. 60). [Incidentally it should be noted that the Documentos para a historia da typographia portugueza nos seculos xvi e xvii, Lisboa, 1881, i, 11 state that Galharde “teve a mercê do officio de impressor regio por alvará de 14 de fevereiro do anno 1530.”] Proença and Anselmo (loc. cit., 36–37) contend that “Pela identidade da portada e figuras desta obra com as de outras obras evidentemente impressas por Germào Galharde, parece-nos que êste traballio não pode deixar de atribuir-se ao mesmo impressor.” To this argument little is added by saying that in 1536 “além de Galharde e dos Conegos de Santa Cruz, nenhum outro impressor existia no pais,” since, after all, the date on the title-page is not necessarily that of the printing. For Germain Gaillard cf. Tito de Noronha, A imprensa Portugueza durante o seculo xvi, Porto, 1874, p. 18–21; Haebler, Spanische und Portugiesische Bücherzeichen des xvi und xvii Jahrhunderts, Strassburg, 1898, nr. xix; and especially R. Proença e A. Anselmo, Bibliografia, pp. 24–41; 153–167 (nrs. 561–679).
page 356 note 9 Op. cit., p. 64 ff. The numbers in the next quotation refer to these reproductions Aeneas also appears on the title-page of Francisco de Avendaño's Comedia of 1553, reproduced in Bonilla's Obras dramáticas del siglo xvi. Primera serie [Madrid, 1914].
page 356 note 10 Op. cit., p. 67. She was also Florinda on the title-page of the undated Auto de Clarindo, reproduced by Bonilla, loc. cit.
page 356 note 11 Ibid. Cf. also Ribeiro, Obras, loc. cit., i, 135. Of the Ditos diuersos feytos por hũa freyra da terceyra regra there is a reproduction opposite p. 143 of Silva's Diccionario bibliographico portuguez, t. x.
page 356 note 12 D. García Peres, Autores portugueses que escribieron en castellano, Madrid, 1890, does not mention our play. As a possible candidate one might suggest a certain Antonio Lopez “estudiante portugues, vezino de la villa de Troncoso, estante en la universidad de Salamanca,” who, at some time, perhaps early, in the sixteenth century, published a gloss of the “Romance sacado de la farsa de Don Duardos, que comienza: En el mes era de abril” … together with a ‘Testamento’ and a ‘Pregunta y Respuesta,‘ all printed in a flying-sheet described by Durán, Romancero general (BAE) i, lxxviii.
page 358 note 13 Cf. J. E. Gillet, Torres Naharro and the Spanish drama of the sixteenth century, in Estudios … in memoriam de A. Bonilla, ii, Madrid, 1930, pp. 437–468. In this article, written some years ago, the present play has not been considered.
page 359 note 14 Forms marked with asterisk are doubtful as lusitanisms.
page 360 note 15 Other examples of the personal infinitive are not inflected. See Syntax.
page 364 note 16 Cf. Morley, Strophes in the Spanish Drama before Lope de Vega, hmp, i, 507, 512.
page 364 note 17 Cancioneiro de Resende, Stuttgart, 1848, i, 119, 179–199, 326, 371, etc.
page 364 note 18 e. g. Gil Vicente: Auto da Mofina Mendes, Comedia de Rubena, Triumpho do Inverno, Farsa chamada “Auto da Lusitana,” Auto dos quatro tempos, Comedia do Viuvo, Comedia sobre a divisa da cidade de Coimbra, Tempio d'Apollo, Dom Duardos; the anonymous Farsa Penada and Auto de Dom Fernando reproduced by Mrs. Michaëlis, Autos Portugueses; the anonymous Auto da Geração humana (cf. Braga, Eschola de Gil Vicente, Porto, 1898, p. 155) etc.
page 364 note 19 These statistics can be only approximate, since there is obviously more than one way of scanning many lines. For example, line 2268 might be explained as joined to the preceding line by synalefa between lines, or by syneresis of ea in desleal in spite of the fact that in lines 1203 and 1584 desleal counts as three syllables.
page 365 note 20 Cf. Ortiz, Comedia Radiana, ed. R. E. House, M. Phil. vii (1910) 513, and Perolópez Ranjel, Farça, ed. J. E. Gillet, PMLA, xli (1926) 862. As to the lyric poets, Cuervo (RHi, ii, 67 f.) observes that there is usually no synalefa before h in Garcilaso, Luis de León, and Ercilla.
page 365 note 21 Fernão d'Oliveira, Grammatica de Linguagem Portugueza, 1536 (ed. Porto, 1871) p. 37, testifies to the fact that in his time there was no aspirate in Portuguese: das vogaes naõ ha hi duvida se naõ q nenhua he aspirada antre nos, tirãdo alghũas interjeiçoes.
page 366 note 22 In the Copias of Jorge Manrique there are 132 perfect 4-syllable lines out of 160 short lines, cf. Espinosa, La sinalefa y la compensación entre versos, RR, xix, 297.
page 366 note 23 Espinosa, op. cit., RR, xvi, 103, 306; xix, 289; xx, 44.
page 366 note 24 This theory Professor Espinosa is not ready to accept, cf. op. cit., RR, xvi, 329, and xix, 299 foot-note.
page 367 note 25 Juan de Valdés, op. cit., p. 368, line 23.
page 367 note 26 Cf. abraze, in Orthography and Pronunciation.
page 367 note 27 Cf. R. Turner, Didon dans la tragédie de la Renaissance italienne et française, Paris, 1926 (Bibliography) and C. Alajmo, Il mito di Didone nella letteratura italiana, Girgenti, 1926. Marlowe's Dido is discussed in J. Friedrich, Die Didodramen des Dolce, Jodelle und Marlowe in ihrem Verhältnis zu einander und zu Vergils Aeneis, Erlangen, 1888. There is, however, no special study (dull as it might be) of Dido's fortune in the English School-drama (Ristwise, Halliwell, Gager) or in the opera (Tate, Hoare), nor of German and Dutch Dido-dramas (Frischlin, Knaust; Dalanthus, Ligneus, Bodecher Benningh, van der Does, Boon, etc.). On going to press, however, we may add a reference to the newly published study by E. Semrau, Dido in der deutschen Dichtung, Berlin, 1930, which we have not yet seen.
page 368 note 28 A.D. 117–180. Epitoma Historiarum Philippicarum, xviii, 4, 5, 6.
page 368 note 29 The relations of the Crónica's Dido-story to Justin, Virgil, and Ovid have been analyzed in some detail by K. Sneyders de Vogel, De Geschiedenis van Dido en Aeneas volgens de Crónica General, in Neophilologus, xv (1929) 13–18; 84–88. The author rightly surmises the existence of a further definite source, which, indeed, had already been pointed out in 1914 by Professor A. Solalinde, RFE, i (1914) 104.
For the influence of the Heroids in Spain cf. R. Schevill, Ovid and the Renascence in Spain, Berkeley, 1913, p. 244 f. To these, the following references may be added: a manuscript described by Fernán Colón, nr. 3283 Epístolas de Ovidio en romance castellano (ap. Gallardo, Ensayo, ii, 533) which is probably not the same as Q224 of the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid (Schevill, p. 245); a manuscript in the former Gayangos-collection: Epistola de Dido á Eneas, traducida de Ovidio por D. Hernando Acuña (Roca, Catálogo, 748 [1]); possibly the flying-sheet Las quexas que hizo la reyna Elisa Dido sobre la partida de Eneas (Gallardo, IV, 1461. The first line: Eneas, pues que te vas may be a translation of Ovid's line 9: Certus es ire tarnen miseramque relinquere Didon, which opens the more direct reproaches); finally, the anonymous translation (16–17c.) reprinted by S. López Inclán, RHi xxxvii (1916) 457–557. For poems probably inspired by the seventh Heroid, cf. J. García Soriano, BRAE, xii (1925) 521 (Diego Bernárdez); Roca, loc. cit., 466 and 768 (Juan de Avellaneda); Romancero de Barcelona (ed. Foulché-Delbosc) RHi, xxix, nr. 70.
page 368 note 30 The date of the Elisa Dido, which was first published in the Obras trágicas y líricas, Madrid, 1609, is doubtful. It was, to be sure, as were the other plays in the volume, composed “en juventud,” but the date of the author's birth is unknown. Cf. H. Mérimée, L'art dramatique à Valencia, Toulouse, 1913, pp. 330–339. A reprint of the play has only recently become available in the Academy's collection of Poetas dramáticos valencianos, ed. E. Juliá Martínez, Madrid, 1929, i, 146–178. Also, some account of the Elisa Dido, its sources and related plays may now be read in C. V. Sargent's Study of the dramatic works of Cristóbal de Virués, New York, 1930, pp. 54–63.
page 369 note 31 Romancero y tragedias, Pt. i. Alcalá de Henares, 1587, fol. 195 ro-vo. Copy in the Library of the Hispanic Society, New York, and in the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid. A reprint of the two plays in this volume is contemplated. The “Sagrado Doctor Sancto” is, of course, St. Augustine who, in his Confessions (i, xiii) so harshly regretted his boyish sorrow for Dido.
page 369 note 32 La Araucana, Pt. iii, Canto xxxii–xxxiii. BAE, xvii, 119 ff.
page 370 note 33 L. de Torre, De la Academia de los Humildes de Villamanta, BRAE, ii, 216.
page 370 note 34 H. Mérimée, loc. cit., 577, n. 2.
page 370 note 35 Cf. Rennert-Castro, Vida de Lope de Vega, 269, and Guillén de Castro, Obras, ed. Juliá, i, lxviii. For an analysis of Castro's play, which was not published until 1625 (Parte segunda) cf. Mérimée, 577 f. It is strange to find in A. González Palencia's Historia de la literatura españda, Madrid, 1921, p. 672, the statement that “A Lobo y a Virués parece que sigue preferentemente Castro.” As Sr. Juliá has recently pointed out (Obras, i, lxv f.), manuscript 15020 of the Biblioteca Nacional (Paz y Melia, nr. 925), licensed for a performance in 1653, is not a mere copy but a new version, keeping fairly close to the original, but entirely re-versified, mostly in ballad-meter.
page 370 note 36 Paz y Melia, Catálogo, nr. 924. The suelta, entitled Amores de Dido y Eneas, was discovered in the Nazionale di Napoli by the late Professor A. Restori; cf. his Piezas de títulos de comedias, Messina, 1903, p. 201. Neither manuscript nor print has been accessible to the editors.
page 370 note 37 El Enano de las Musas, Madrid.
page 370 note 38 Published in Parte 32 (1669). Pedro Roca (Manuscritos de Gayangos, nr. 828) mentions of Villegas: El mas famoso troyano. Not in Paz y Melia.
page 370 note 39 Cf. La Barrera, Catálogo bibliográfico, p. 71. Folch de Cardona, Marqués de Castelnou, died in 1694. Restori, loc. cit., wrongly ascribes this play to the end of the eighteenth century.
page 370 note 40 Born in 1714, living in 1738 (La Barrera).
page 371 note 41 Cf. Alajmo, loc. cit., 134–156. Metastasio, besides, acknowledges having borrowed the destruction of Carthage by Iarbas and the hidden love of Anna for Eneas from the third book of Ovid's Fasti. Two other Spanish translations of Metastasio's Didone are mentioned by Mario Méndez Bejarano, Lágrimas poéticas, Estudios … in memoriam de A. Bonilla, ii, Madrid, 1930, p. 605, viz. one by Carlos Broschi Farinelli (1752), performed at the Retiro; another by D. Martín Sendín y Rivero, performed in Barcelona the following year.
page 371 note 42 Mentioned by Moratín, Orígenes, in E. de Ochoa, Tesoro del teatro español, v, p. v.
page 371 note 43 Moratín, loc. cit., v, p. vi.
page 371 note 44 La Barrera, p. 515 reported it in the possession of Sancho Rayón. The play probably belongs to the middle of the eighteenth century.
page 371 note 45 One of a series of librettos, with the Italian text facing the Spanish translation, published, for the convenience of theatre-goers, by Generas, Barcelona, 1763.
page 371 note 46 On Iriarte's incomplete translation cf. E. Cotarelo, Iriarte y su época, Madrid, 1897, p. 303 f., and Menéndez y Pelayo, Traductores españoles de la Eneida; apuntes libliográficos, Madrid, 1879. Méndez Bejarano, loc. cit. reports a Dido abandonada “tragedia en una escena, con dos personajes: Dido y su hermana Ana,” by the Duque de Montellano.
page 371 note 47 Le Gentil, Le poète Manuel Bretón de los Herreros, Paris, 1909, p. 26.
page 371 note 48 Barcelona, Piferrer, s.a.
page 371 note 49 It is not to be supposed that the theme is dead. Its most recent treatment, at the hands of Mrs. Atherton (Dido, Queen of Hearts, New York, 1929) reveals still unexploited possibilities. Here Dido has become a feminist, and dies to save Carthage from Iarbas, a consummation which, together with certain details, brings us back to Justin.
page 372 note 50 Cf. Obras, i, lxvi f.
page 372 note 51 Among the more important might be Pireno's Fabulosa Tragedia de la Elisa Dido, 1629, an extensive poem in octavas (cf. Salvá, i, 310). Roca (Catálogo, nr. 713) reports Las lágrimas de Dido of Francisco Manoel de Mello, in octavas reales. There is a sonnet of Virues (ap. Gallardo, iv, 1079) and two by Juan de Arguijo (BAE, xxxii, 392, 398). The Dido of Juan María Maury Castañeda (d. 1845) is a translation of Bk. iv of the Aeneid provided with a proemio and epilogo (BAE, lxvii, 175 ff.) For references to poems by Lorenzo de Sepúlveda, Diego Félix de Quijada and Álvarez de Toledo, see Mario Méndez Bejarano, Lágrimas poéticas, loc. cit., ii, 604 f.
page 372 note 52 H. Keniston, Garcilaso de la Vega, New York, 1922, p. 200.
page 372 note 53 Aeneid, iv, 651 ff. It was tempting to assume that it was Garcilaso's rendering which became a proverbial saying, as in Gracián, El Criticón, ed. Cejador, i, 77 (1651): “En verdad que era definicion, cuando Dios quería y lo dejó tan concertado”; and i, 130: “Barcelona, aunque rica cuando Dios queria…” until Vicente's Dom Duardos was recalled (ed. 1562, fol. cxxix): “bien solia yo mosicar/nel tiempo que Dios querria.” See also Cejador, Fraseologia, i, 466.
page 372 note 54 BAE, lix, 137.
page 372 note 55 Durán, Romancero General, nr. 487. Cf. also 485, 486, 489. Dido's complaint to Eneas, incidentally, is the subject of a rare ballad of which the British Museum has two early sixteenth-century editions, G. 11022 (8) and C. 63. g. 6.
page 372 note 56 Tirso de Molina, El Burlador de Sevilla, i, 15. In the above-mentioned romance (nr. 487) Dido exclaims: Oh traidor, hasme burlado! And in nr. 489: … Ni él cruel hijo de Anquises Se burlará de mi pena. One of the sonnets in Diego Felix Quijada's Las Soliadas (1619) refers to Aeneas in the line: gozó galán, burló tirano.
page 372 note 57 Thus in the Picara Justina, ed. Puyol, i, 203. The more usual, although perhaps not the oldest, form seems to be: de Dios dixeron. Thus in the Pícara Justina, i, 40; Quevedo, Obras, iii, 263; Rodriguez Marin, El Folk-Lore Andaluz, p. 365.